Some allege candidate almost made racial slur at campaign event

Some critics of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum
said video footage of a speech at a campaign event shows him starting to utter
a racial slur while referring to President Obama, then cutting himself off
mid-word.

While speaking to a group of supporters in Wisconsin on Tuesday,
Santorum said, “We know what the candidate, Barack Obama, was like. The
anti-war, government nig--, uh…” before stopping abruptly, then adding, “America
was, uh, a source for division around the world. And that what we were doing
was wrong. We needed to pull out and we needed to pull back.”

Although the uncompleted word sure sounds like it began with “nig”
and what Santorum said next in the sentence didn’t flow naturally with the
other words, a campaign spokesman today denied that the uncompleted word was “nigger.”

In January Santorum told a crowd of supporters in Iowa that he didn’t “want to make black people’s lives
better by giving them other people’s money.”

Here is the clip of Tuesday’s
speech. The remark causing controversy is spoken around the 34:30 mark. You can
decide for yourself.

Outcry, national attention spurred removal of voter fraud displays

A Cincinnati outdoor advertising company announced Tuesday
that it will take down controversial billboards that opponents claim
are aimed at intimidating voters.

Norton Outdoor Advertising had been contracted to put up
about 30 billboards that read “Voter Fraud is a Felony!” The billboards
also listed the maximum penalty for voter fraud — up to 3 and a half years and a
$10,000 fine.

Opponents of the billboards claim they were strategically
placed in predominantly low-income and black neighborhoods in Cincinnati
as a means to discourage those largely Democratic voters from going to
the polls.

The billboards were funded by an anonymous “private family foundation.”

In a statement posted online, Norton Executive Vice
President Mike Norton said the displays would be taken down as soon as
possible.He wrote that the
foundation and Norton agreed after hearing criticism that the sentiment
surrounding the displays was contrary to their intended purpose.

The family foundation didn’t intend to make a political
statement, but rather make the public aware of voting regulations, he
wrote.

“We look forward to helping to heal the divisiveness that has been an unfortunate result of this election year,” Norton wrote.

Norton had previously told CityBeat that the billboards were not targeted but distributed randomly throughout the city.

Several Cincinnati officials wrote to the company requesting the billboards be taken down.

ClearChannel Outdoor Advertising announced on Monday that it was removing similar billboards in Cleveland and Columbus.

The billboards throughout Ohio had garnered national criticism and media attention.

A rival outdoor advertising company is putting up 10 new billboards to rebut the voter fraud ones.

The new red, white and blue billboards will read “Hey Cincinnati, voting is a right not a crime!”

Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld said in an
emailed news release that he reached out to Lamar Advertising
Company to ask if they would donate the billboards throughout
Cincinnati.

“We should be encouraging folks to participate in our
democratic process, not trying to scare them,” Sittenfeld wrote. “I
salute Lamar’s generosity and their support in encouraging citizens to
raise their voice and not be scared away.”

Other winners include U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

A well-known Cincinnati philanthropist
is among four people selected to receive the first-ever Women of Distinction
Award by the national YWCA.

Francie Pepper is being
recognized for her years of work in support of issues involving women, girls
and racial justice.

Pepper has served on the
board of the Cincinnati YWCA since 1996, and also served as chair of its board
from 2000-04. She has played a critical role for women who have experienced
domestic violence, co-chairing a YWCA capital campaign that raised $7.5 million
for a larger shelter that tripled the agency’s capacity to serve battered women
and their children so they wouldn’t have to be put on a waiting list.

Also, some campaign funds
were used to restore the YWCA’s historic headquarters, located on Walnut Street
downtown, add a childcare center to the facility.

Further, Pepper has volunteered
for numerous organizations and causes in Greater Cincinnati, and her work in
support of domestic violence awareness programs has gotten national
recognition. She is a major supporter of the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith
College, an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, archives,
photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history, including
all of the YWCA’s historical files.

Francie Pepper is the wife of
John Pepper, who previously served as the chairman of the board at both Procter
& Gamble and The Walt Disney Co.; she is the mother of David Pepper, a
former Cincinnati city councilman and Hamilton County commissioner.

The Women of Distinction
Award, bestowed by the YWCA USA, honors professional women from the private and
public sectors across the United States who have demonstrated excellence,
leadership and integrity in their fields and in the community, serving as role
models for other successful women.

Nominations from YWCAs across
the United States were solicited to find leaders whose work has made an impact
on women’s economic empowerment and racial justice.

Other award recipients this
year are:

• Congresswoman Gabrielle
Giffords (D-Ariz.), who survived an assassination attempt in January 2011, and
is recovering from her injuries;

• Lt. Col. Tammy Duckworth,
an Iraq War veteran and ex-Army helicopter pilot who combat wounds led to the
amputation of her legs and cost her the use of her right arm; and

• Elouise Cobell, a Native
American leader who challenged the United States' mismanagement of trust funds
belonging to more than 500,000 individual Native Americans, leading to a $3.4
billion settlement.

This week’s ruling by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission that a Greater Cincinnati landlady violated a girl’s civil rights by posting a “whites only” sign at an apartment complex’s swimming pool is a decision that most rational people would say is just.

The Jan. 12 ruling means the commission, if it cannot reach a settlement with landlady Jamie Hein, could issue a complaint against her with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. The AG’s Office would then represent the complainant, Michael Gunn, before an administrative law judge, who could impose penalties and punitive damages.

Maya Angelou, other activists encourage justice without hate

Panelists including the parents of slain Florida teenager
Trayvon Martin talked about reconciliation and turning personal
suffering into power at the National and Racial Healing Town Hall at the
Duke Energy Convention Center on Wednesday during the Children’s
Defense Fund National Conference.

Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father, broke down in tears as he
told the story of how his son saved his life by dragging him out of
their condo and calling 911 after Tracy had been badly burned in a
grease fire.

“My child is my hero,” Tracy Martin said. “He saved my life. Not to be there to save his is troublesome to me.”

Trayvon Martin was shot and killed on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

Trayvon, who was black, was unarmed and shot by the white
and Hispanic Zimmerman after Zimmerman pursued him in defiance of a
request by a police dispatcher. Zimmerman claims the shooting was in
self-defense.

Zimmerman is out on $1 million bail while awaiting trial on a charge of second degree murder.

“Nothing anyone can do will bring Trayvon back,” Tracy
Martin said. “You have to take that negative and turn it into a
positive. We chose to keep our son's name alive and not let his death be
in vain.”

The town hall-style meeting was kicked off by poet and
author Maya Angelou. She urged the hundreds of people in attendance,
mostly young and black, to demand justice for Trayvon — referring to
Zimmerman as “the brute” — but “that means we don’t become poisoned by
hate.”

Angelou wasn’t the only one who urged against hate.

Black historian and civil rights activist Vincent Harding,
who celebrated his 81st birthday on Wednesday, issued a challenge to
the youth in attendance:

“Are you ready to fight for the healing of George
Zimmerman and all the George Zimmermans of America? Are you up to that?”
he asked.

“This country has no chance unless they are healed.”

The panel was made up of social activists, many of whom
had lost friends and family to violence or bigotry, but whose pain
prompted activism instead of retaliation — panelists such as The Rev.
Ronald and Kim Odom, who lost a son to gun violence but volunteer in
intervention and outreach programs; Clemmie Greenlee, a former
prostitute and gang member who formed a peacemaking organization to work
with gang members after her son was killed; and Ndume Olatushani, a
former prisoner who was released in June after 19 years on death row
after being falsely convicted of murdering a Tennessee shopkeeper.

The younger members of the audience were encouraged to ask
questions after the panel presentation. Teenagers and young adults from
as far as Tennessee, North Carolina and Minnesota asked questions about
dismantling the system of racial oppression, overcoming odds stacked
against young minorities and having society see past an old felony
conviction.

The panelists all tried to offer encouragement, while
urging the younger generation to continue to try to fight to make things
better.

“When you look at the odds, it’s so horrific for a young
minority American, you say ‘why even try, why even bother?’ ” said
Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney who is representing Trayvon’s
mother Sabryna Fulton. “But the reason you try and you bother, there is
so many examples where we beat the odds every day and nobody even know
about it or talked about it.”

“It goes back to you and saying, ‘I am going to make
something of myself. I don’t care about the statistics, I don’t care
about the odds.’ … You say, ‘well, if it’s one out of a million, I’m
going to be that one.’”

Appears on same day Husted petitions Supreme Court to strike down in-person voting

Speaking to about 60 people at the Rockdale Baptist Church
in Avondale, the Rev. Jesse Jackson talked about the many “schemes” used to
disenfranchise voters while encouraging Cincinnatians to register to vote and
take advantage of Ohio’s early voting days.

“Dealing in this state, for example, you think so much about
the painful days in the deep South — the overt schemes to deny the right to
vote,” Jackson said on Tuesday, the last day to register to vote in Ohio.

“We saw Ohio as a kind of beacon of light, the beacon of
hope once we ran across the river coming north. This year we’ve seen
Ohio and Pennsylvania take the lead in trying to purge voters and
suppress the vote to determine the outcome.”

Jackson’s comments came on the same day Ohio Secretary of
State Jon Husted appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court the Six Circuit
Court of Appeals’ decision to allow early in-person voting on the three
days before Election Day.

The three days had previously only applied to military personnel and their families.

Republicans like Husted have cited cost as the reason to
not allow in-person voting on the three days before the election. But in
an Aug. 19 email to The Columbus Dispatch, Franklin County
Republican Party chairman Doug Preisse said “I guess I really actually
feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban —
read African-American — voter-turnout machine.”

Pennsylvania, meanwhile, tried to require voters take a
photo ID with them into the polls. A state judge blocked the law from
going into effect for the 2012 election.

Jackson said restrictions as to who can vote when and where undermine the purpose of democracy.

Cincinnati council members and community leaders today explained and defended plans to use the parking lease to fund a disparity study that would gauge whether the city should change its contracting policies to favorably target minority- and women-owned businesses.

But before City Council unanimously passed the motion at today's meeting, it was amended to allow the city administration to find alternate sources of funding.

Since the city dismantled its last minority- and
women-owned business program in 1999, contract participation rates for
minority-owned businesses have plummeted, while rates for women-owned
businesses have remained relatively flat.

But because of a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, governments must conduct a study to prove there's a race- or gender-based disparity before policies can be adjusted to favor such groups.

Cincinnati has not taken up a disparity study since 2002. That study found evidence of disparities but ultimately recommended race- and gender-neutral policies to avoid legal uncertainty that surrounded the issue at the time.

"This is an opportunity to respond to a complaint and
concern that has been around for as long as I can remember," Councilman
Wendell Young said.

City officials claim they couldn't conduct another study until the administration finished implementing recommendations from OPEN Cincinnati, a task force established in 2009 after Mayor Mark Mallory and his administration were criticized for neglecting the city's small business program.

But the holdup has also been brought on by the study's cost, which city officials currently estimate between $500,000 and $1.5 million. Some critics argue the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, who's running for mayor this year, defended the cost by explaining a disparity study can potentially lead to economic development by lifting minority groups, who currently face unemployment rates higher than white Cincinnati residents. She said it's on the city to ensure everyone, including women and minorities, benefit from Cincinnati's economic growth.

Other critics, particularly mayoral candidate John Cranley, have criticized the motion's suggestion for funding. The motion asks the city administration to fund the study with part of the upfront money that will come from leasing the city's parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority, but it does allow the city administration to find other funding options if possible.

Cranley, who supports conducting a disparity study but opposes the parking lease, says the money should come from other, unnamed sources because parking funds are currently being held up while the city hashes out legal uncertainty surrounding the lease and the Port Authority works out contracts with private operators that will manage Cincinnati's parking assets.

In response to those concerns, Qualls said that "money doesn't grow on trees" and Council has to make do with what it has.

Councilman Chris Seelbach voted against the parking lease, but he supports using parking funds for the disparity study. He says that, while he may have voted against the lease, the vote is done and the money is there.

The amended motion was unanimously passed by City Council today. It asks the city administration to present a budget and timetable for the study at the Budget and Finance Committee's first October meeting.

Participants will wear hoodies on the square

A rally will be held at Fountain Square today to commemorate the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and to demand a thorough investigation of the incident.

The event begins at 5 p.m. and attendees are asked to bring signs that aren’t posted on sticks, to comply with a local law, and also to wear hooded jackets. Martin, 17, was wearing a “hoodie” when George Zimmerman allegedly killed him Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla.

Rallies have been held across the nation during the past week to protest the handling of Martin’s case. Many of the participants have worn hoodies in a show of solidarity with the slain teenager, often carrying signs that state, “I am Trayvon Martin.”

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory posted a similar photograph on his Facebook page over the weekend. It’s unclear if Mallory plans to attend today’s rally.

Among the groups organizing the rally are Occupy The Hood and the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center.

Zimmerman, 28, who says he belongs to a neighborhood watch program in his gated community, began following Martin at about 7 p.m. for what he described in a 911 call as “suspicious behavior.” Martin was walking back to his father’s condominium after buying iced tea for himself and Skittles for his soon-to-be stepbrother.

"This guy looks like he's up to no good, on drugs or something," Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher.

Some sort of encounter occurred that resulted in Martin’s death. Sanford Police didn’t arrest Zimmerman, saying that it appeared he acted in self-defense.

After the incident became publicized through Facebook, Twitter and other social media, public outcry grew. More than 2 million people have signed an online petition demanding justice, and the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department have launched investigations.

The civil rights icon embraced many progressive causes

If his speeches and other comments are any indication,
Martin Luther King Jr. would likely stand in sharp opposition to modern
Ohio Republicans and many of their proposed policies.

In reviewing King’s work, speeches and quotes, it’s clear
he was a progressive on a wide range of issues — from voting rights to collective bargaining rights to
reproductive rights. In contrast, modern Republicans are doing their
best to dilute such rights and scale back progressive causes on a host
of other issues.

Given that it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, what
better time to look back at some of King’s positions and analyze what
they could mean in terms of today’s politics? Warning: The results might upset some Republicans.

On voting rights:

“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the
right to vote, I do not possess myself,” King said, according to PBS. “I
cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a
democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can
only submit to the edict of others.”

King and other civil rights activists saw the right
to vote as the most crucial stepping stone to equality. In fact, one of the defining accomplishments of the Civil Rights
Movement was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which attempted to ban discrimination
in the voting booth.

“Give us the ballot and we will transform the salient
misdeeds of blood-thirsty mobs into calculated good deeds of orderly
citizens,” King said.

More specifically, the Voting Rights Act helped undo
several voting restrictions taken up against minority voters in the South. The restrictions rarely outright banned black voters; instead,
Southerners took up backhanded standards, such as literacy tests and
poll taxes, that many black voters couldn’t meet.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because, by at least one top
Ohio Republican’s admission, growing restrictions on early voting also
help curtail black voters — who, by the way, happen to vote for Democrats in
droves.

“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the
voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American —
voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the Franklin
County Republican Party and close adviser to Gov. John Kasich, in an
email to The Columbus Dispatch.

Especially given Preisse’s comments, it’s clear King would not approve of Republican actions. King saw enough oppression in Southern voting booths to know better.

On labor unions and “right to work”:

“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard
against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a
law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to
destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which
unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone,” King
said, according to the Economic Policy Institute. “Wherever these laws
have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there
are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We
demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.”

In this statement, King unequivocally disavows restrictions on unions and collective bargaining rights.

Meanwhile, Gov. Kasich and top Ohio Republicans remain mum
on whether they support anti-union laws like “right to work,” much to
the chagrin of tea party groups that strongly support such efforts.

But it’s clear Kasich and Ohio Republicans support some
restrictions on unions and collective bargaining. In 2011, the
Republican-controlled legislature and governor approved Senate Bill 5, a
bill that significantly curtailed public unions and their collective
bargaining rights.

Almost immediately, labor unions rallied in opposition to
the effort and took the issue to referendum. Voters overwhelmingly
rejected S.B. 5 the following November, dealing a major blow to Republicans and a huge
political boost to unions and Democrats.

Despite the rejection, some conservatives continue pushing anti-union causes. The
tea party-backed group Ohioans for Workplace Freedom aims to get an
anti-union “right to work” initiative on the ballot in 2014.

Considering King’s strong pro-union statements, it’s clear he would stand against Ohio Republicans’ and the tea party’s anti-union efforts if he lived today.

On the death penalty:

“I do not think God approves the death penalty for any
crime — rape and murder included,” King said, according to Stanford
University. “Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern
criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in
the nature of God.”

King’s comment clearly disavows the death penalty, even
for the gravest crimes, based on his religious perspective and
study of criminology.

Perhaps more than any other issue on this list, King’s stance on the death penalty could upset some Democrats as much as some Republicans. But even though support for the death penalty crosses partisan lines, it’s much more pronounced on the Republican side of the spectrum.

In recent days, the debate over the death penalty reignited in Ohio after Gov. Kasich’s administration took 26 minutes to execute a gasping, grunting convicted killer with a new cocktail of drugs that was never tried before in the United States.

Based on his claims, King would oppose the state-sanctioned killing of a convicted killer, and he certainly would reject any defense that touts vengeance as a justification for killing another human being.

On health care:

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care
is the most shocking and inhuman,” King said, according to Dr. Quentin
Young, who attended King’s speech at the 1966 convention of the Medical
Committee for Human Rights.

Whether King’s quote indicates support for Democrat-backed
legislation like Obamacare or other measures, such as a single-payer
system, is completely unclear. But King’s rhetoric certainly comes
closer to Democrats’ support for universal access to health care than Republicans’
opposition to governmental incursions into the U.S. health care
system.

But Kasich was in the minority of the Ohio Republican
Party in his pursuit. The state legislature’s Republican majority
refused to approve the Medicaid expansion in the two-year state budget
and later bills. When Kasich finally got the Medicaid expansion done
through the seven-member Controlling Board, several legislative
Republicans joined an unsuccessful lawsuit to reverse the decision.

Accordingly, King would probably praise Kasich for opening up access to health care, and it’s doubtful he would support Republicans in their attempts to block health care for the poor.

On reproductive rights:

“For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family
planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security
and a decent life,” King said, according to Planned Parenthood. “There
are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal
existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an
understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family
related in size to his community environment and to the income potential
he can command.”

King’s comments on reproductive rights came as he accepted the first round of the Margaret Sanger Awards from Planned Parenthood, an organization now demonized by Republicans for its support for abortion and reproductive rights.

But King’s comments — and even his mere acceptance of the
Planned Parenthood award — show strong support for reproductive
rights for low-income men and women. In that respect, King is clearly
going against Ohio Republicans’ pursuits.

Even though King’s stance on abortion is unclear, his
comments clearly contradict efforts to restrict access to family
planning clinics and reproductive rights. Once again, he would not approve of the Republican agenda.

A Cincinnati-area state representative is decrying billboards throughout Ohio whose aim, she says, is voter intimidation.

Democratic Rep. Alicia Reece held a news conference Monday morning in front of a billboard that read, “Voter Fraud is a Felony!”

The billboards were paid for “by a private family
foundation,” but Reece claims in a news release that the sponsors are
essentially anonymous and the billboards are being strategically placed
in low-income and black neighborhoods.

“We are asking the Outdoor Advertising Association of Ohio
to work with the anonymous sponsors of the billboards to have them
removed immediately,” Reece wrote in a statement.

“It’s obvious that the billboards are designed to intimidate voters and leave some wondering if merely voting is now a crime.”

Mike Norton with Norton Outdoor Advertising — the company
on whose billboards the ads appear — said there are 30 such signs in the
Greater Cincinnati area.

He said the sponsor didn’t ask for any demographic
targeting and the ads are appearing in all neighborhoods wherever there
was open space.

Norton said the sponsor wished to remain anonymous and he isn’t at liberty to give out its name.

As for the anonymity of the ads sponsor, “Our company’s
stand on political advertising is we do our very best to make sure it’s
accurate and it’s not an attack ad,” Norton said. “This seemed to fall
well within the bounds of reason on both of those benchmarks.”

The billboards are not illegal, and they are considered Constitutionally protected speech.

The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University
Law School issued a policy paper finding that cases of fraud by
individual voters are extremely rare.

The center found that in the 2004 presidential election saw a voter fraud rate of 0.00004 percent.

Cincinnati isn’t the only city to see such billboards.
They have also made appearances in Cleveland and Columbus, as well as
southeast Wisconsin.

According to the Plain Dealer newspaper in
Cleveland, the billboards there are owned by Clear Channel Outdoor. A
company spokesman told the newspaper that Clear Channel’s policy is
usually to identify who sponsors a political ad, but in this case a
salesperson made a mistake.